So, are we saying UK wasted 500M since CA was useless/ineffective and local radio stations did more?

Perhaps they created the content for the stations?

Yes of course but it is still a cost benefit issue, as in how much do we gain versus how much could we loose.

The case of Omondi, the Luo MCA in Kiambu (Kahawa Wendani actually, practically Nairobi) is a good example. He is a pleasant fellow, a boy scout in fact, who had run on an ODM ticket several times hopping to exploit the multi tribal mix in this urban sub county, but lost each time. For him moving to the winning outfit was a good move plus it made Jubilee members feel good as well. Yet how much much interest does he represent? Very little. In fact he is already in trouble with Baba yao the governor.

Now if Omondi had run and won in Gatukuyu or Lari in the same Kiambu, I would agree about things changing....

I can answer this one.

No they did not.

The messages that vernacular radio carried in Mt Kenya were not crafted during the elections. They were restatements of themselves that had been trending since back in 2013/14.

For instance that 'Uthamaki' campaign that seems to have so scared NASA bloggers was actually first crafted against Kidero way back in 2014 when it was used to encourage strategic voter registration. The message was "we need to retake the Nairobi sit. You voters in Kiambu, Muranga, Nyeri have nothing to defend over there and you should register here to help bring back Uthamaki to the city."

We saw a similar strategy used for Nixon Korir in Langata, what is Uthamaki in Kale?.

I don't mind you guys giving credit to a mzungu if it makes you feel better. After all Baba seems to think all our problems can only be solved by white men, including holding credible elections.

you need to eat cake, ukikosa food.
I am also getting worried that I have or I am still missing out on this kenyan dream, where majority hang out on social media including our grandparents who are being targeted online by some company in UK.

sasa naona narrative is changing to red t-shirts, and CA hiring foot-soldiers to convert online social media, to gichagi baraza media.
I will not be surprised to hear CA infiltrated the mashinani bar talk gossip scene.

@Wakanyugi, if there is a science of studying and controlling human behavior then data would be a resource.

There is in fact, such a science. And though psychology and psychiatry have so far failed to get this science, it's fragments or even its reality has been with us since time immemorial.

The CA guys may not be using this science but that doesn't mean 'as if they knew' doesn't work.

You are right that some of these techniques have been in use from the past. But so has social media been used from the past.

Twitter, fb and the rest are social media channels but the meeting of persons and culture is the essence of social media.

So the critical question is can an increase in channels have an effect on an individual's behavior even with respect to channels that the person doesn't have access to?

The answer is in the affirmative. Eg. It's highly probable that a sizeable portion of our wanjiku's who don't have smart phones know of 'Samantha'.

In the case of the past elections, we can't for sure say that CA were effective, but we can't also say that their interference therefore will always be negligible.

Tycho: It is not hard to manipulate people and even you can do it if you were ruthless enough. And you can bet that even a half baked politician or pastor wannabe has more ruthlessness in his small finger than you'll probably ever muster.

People are desperate to have someone do the hard work of thinking and managing life for them. All you have to do, to have them eating out of your hand, is to make promises, you don't even have to keep them and find a convenient bogeyman or two to blame for their failure to think. Yaani, the same strategy that a village witch doctor uses.

So yes, you are right recent technological and social changes have offered more opportunities for the likes of CA and assorted manipulators to do their thing and make out like bandits when they are at it. But it is certainly not new.

I simply hesitate to give CA credit for an election result that went exactly as level heads had predicted. If they had somehow got Jubilee that 3 million margin of victory that they were dreaming of I would start to be impressed. They did not.

The voting patterns and margin of victory for the presidential vote were largely the same in 2017 as in 2013, if you allow for demographic changes. Even the predictable post electoral whining barely changed in either tune or timing_____kiliibiwo tena, those people are thieves, Uhuru must go, bla, bla, bla!

Let us agree that CA waliangukia. Good for them.

So, did CA have an effect in the American elections?

Thank you @peterReborn... this really helped to clarify the CA stuff!